Is the Coronavirus (COVID-19) a mouse? Well, it has been something of a terror. When it first came out of China, because the Chinese lied to us, we did not know whether or not COVID-19 is dangerous. Since then the news media has overemphasized its dangers, and we expect some government agencies have padded their statistics to make COVID-19 look more dangerous than it actually is. Nevertheless, it has become fairly obvious that the virus is just a bit more dangerous than the flu. If you are not older than 45 and otherwise healthy, your risk from COVID-19 is small. Closing the schools, for example, keeps our children from being exposed to Liberal Democrat indoctrination, but it doesn’t provide them protection they need from the virus.

Unfortunately, we behave like herd animals. When we see the people around us afraid, we become afraid. Then we are at risk from tyranny. We can too easily be persuaded to give seemingly calm, authoritative, persuasive, knowledgeable, and power-hungry leaders more temptation than they can handle.

Most states have a constitution similar to the Constitution of Virginia. Still, if you live in another state, please look up your own. See if your constitution permits your governor to rule by decree. The Constitution of Virginia does not permits our governor such power. Your constitution probably doesn’t either.

Here are two basic arguments for this view.

A constitution is a charter that authorizes the powers our government uses to govern us. If a power is not authorized in a constitution, then the government does not have that power.

The Constitution of Virginia doesn’t give our governor the power to make laws. It gives this power to the General Assembly. Consider how Article IV (Legislature) begins in Section 1 (Legislative power).

The legislative power of the Commonwealth shall be vested in a General Assembly, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Delegates.

When it begins with this statement, Article IV, Section 11 (Enactment of laws) clearly nails down what that means.

No law shall be enacted except by bill. A bill may originate in either house, may be approved or rejected by the other, or may be amended by either, with the concurrence of the other.

Section 7. Laws should not be suspended prohibits “suspending laws, or the execution of laws, by any authority, without consent of the representatives of the people”. In other words, the governor is not suppose to replace existing laws with his own edicts.

Section 17. Construction of the Bill of Rights says: “The rights enumerated in this Bill of Rights shall not be construed to limit other rights of the people not therein expressed.” When any government arbitrarily seizes powers, that government infringes upon our unenumerated rights.

I wonder if any Governor has the power to decree a quarantine that we are experiencing based on this explanation.

• Isolation separates sick people with a quarantinable communicable disease from people who are not sick.

• Quarantine separates and restricts the movement of people who were exposed to a contagious disease to see if they become sick.

Seems to me that if a person does not have COVID-19, he or she is not sick and there is no justification for isolation.

Same for any person who has not been exposed and are not sick. Why should they be separated or restricted in a quarantine for more than the one or two weeks the virus takes to surface on someone exposed?